The Pilot and his Wife Part 24

"You will be quite well, aunt, I hope, by the time I come again perhaps in a few days. Good-bye till then."

He left the room rather brusquely, and his face was black as thunder.

Elizabeth read his thoughts, and when they came out into the kitchen she forestalled him.

"Listen, Salve," she said; "I must, of course, stay here as long as aunt is ill."

"Of course," he replied; "and you have acquaintances here."

"You mean Fru Beck? Yes, she has been so kind to me, and I am attached to her--she is unhappily married, poor thing!"

Salve was astounded. Elizabeth seemed all in a moment to have forgotten a great deal--to have forgotten that there existed certain stumbling-blocks between them--was it perhaps because she was in her aunt's house? He looked coldly at her as if he could not quite comprehend what had come over her.

"You will remain, of course, as long as you please," he said, and prepared to go; but could not help adding with bitterness--

"I daresay you find it lonely and dull at home."

"You are not so far wrong there, Salve," she replied. "I have indeed found it lonely enough out there for many years now. You are so often away from home, and then I am left quite alone. It is two years now since I have been in here to see my aunt."

"Elizabeth," he burst out, trying hard to restrain himself, "have you taken leave of your senses?"

"That is just what I want to avoid, Salve," she said, with freezing deliberation.

He stared at her. She could stand and tell him this to his face!

"So these are your sentiments, then," he observed, scornfully. "I always suspected it; and now, for what I care, you may please yourself about coming home, Elizabeth," he continued in a cold, indifferent tone.

"You ought always to have known what my sentiments were, Salve; that I was, perhaps, too much attached to you."

"I shall send you money. You shall not have that as an excuse. So far as I am concerned, you may enjoy the society of Fru Beck and your fine friends as long as ever you please."

"And why should I not be allowed to speak to Fru Beck?" she cried, with her head thrown back, and with an expression of rising anger. "You don't mean, I suppose, that there is anything against me that should prevent my entering her house? But there must be an end to this, Salve--and it is for the sake of our love I say it; for if matters go on as they have been going on so long between us," she concluded slowly, and with a tremor in her voice, "you might live to see the day when it had ceased to exist. These things are not in our own power, Salve."

He stood for a moment still, and gazed at her in speechless amazement, while the flash of his dark keen eyes showed that a devil had been roused within him, which he had the utmost difficulty in restraining.

"I will suppose that you have said this in a moment of excitement," he said, with terrible calmness; "I shall not be angry with you--I shall forget it; I promise you that. And I think that you have not been quite yourself to-day--ill--"

"Don't deceive yourself, Salve. I mean every word--as surely as I love you."

"Farewell, Elizabeth; I shall be here again on Wednesday," he said, as if he only held to his purpose, and did not care to hear any more of this. He left her then, and shut the door quietly behind him.

When he had gone, Elizabeth sank rather than sat down upon the bench.

She was frightened at what she had said. A profound dread took possession of her. She knew his nature so well, and knew that she was risking everything, that the result might be that he would leave her altogether, and take to some misguided life far away from home. And yet it must--it must be dared. And with G.o.d's help she would conquer, and bind him to her closer than ever he had been before.

CHAPTER XXIX.

As Salve stood and steered for home, he had as yet only a dull consciousness of what had occurred; but there was anger in his eye, and a hard determined look in his face. His pride had received a terrible shock. She had suddenly fallen upon him with all this on neutral ground; she had told him plainly that she had been unhappy, and that she felt she had been living under a tyranny the whole time of their married life. He smiled bitterly--well, he had been right, it seemed, all along in feeling that she was not open with him.

Yes, it was true that they had lived unhappily; but whose fault had it been? Had she not deceived him when he was young and confiding, and did not know what doubt was? And since?--he knew but too well what it had cost her to adapt herself to his humble circ.u.mstances.

He felt that the power which he had had over her for so many years was gone. It was as if she had all of a sudden set down a barrel of gunpowder on the floor of his house and threatened to blow it up. Such threats, however, would have no weight with him.

When he came to Merdo he moored the cutter in silence--scarcely looking at Gjert, who came down to help him--and went in, without speaking, to the house, where he stood by the window for a while writing on the window-pane. It was soon quite dark outside; Gjert had lit a candle, and had sat down by the table. He understood that there was something wrong again with his mother, but did not dare to ask after her, as he was longing to do. His father, during the rest of the evening, never stirred from the corner of the bench which was his son's sleeping-place; it was made to serve the double purpose of bench and bed.

When supper-time arrived, Gjert put some food on the table. He felt that the situation somehow was dangerous, and went on his tiptoes to make as little noise as possible; but he was the more awkward in consequence, and made a clatter with the plates.

This, and the dread of him which his son showed, irritated Salve. He flared up suddenly, and burst out in a thundering voice--

"Don't you ask after your mother, boy?"

Gjert would have been frightened under ordinary circ.u.mstances, but his anxiety for his mother, for whom his heart bled, gave him courage to answer boldly--

"Yes, father; I have been wanting all the time to ask how mother was. Is she not coming? Poor mother!" and the boy burst into tears, laid his head upon his arm, and sobbed.

"Mother will come back when her aunt over in Arendal is well again,"

said the pilot, soothingly. But he soon broke out again.

"You have nothing to blubber for," he said; "you can go in and see her if you like t-omorrow morning the first thing. You may go now and sleep in our bed."

Gjert obeyed; and his father paced to and fro on the floor afterwards for a long while in great agitation.

"That is her game, then, is it?" he exclaimed. "She knew what she was about, and she knew who it was she was threatening."

He sat down again on the bench-bed with clasped hands, and eyes fixed on the ground. Pa.s.sion was working strongly within him.

"But she does not put compulsion upon me."

The candle was expiring in the socket, and he lit another and put it in its place. It was past midnight. He remained for a little with the candlestick in his hand, and then took the light in to Gjert. The boy was lying in his mother's place, and had evidently cried himself to sleep.

His father stood for a long while over him. His lips quivered, and his face became ashy pale. He controlled himself with an effort and went back to the other room, where he sat down in the same att.i.tude as before.

When Gjert came in in the morning, he found his father lying down on the bench with all his clothes on. He was asleep. It was evident that he had sat up the whole night. It went to the boy's heart; and he felt sorry for his father now.

The latter woke shortly after and looked at him rather confusedly at first. Then he said, gently--

"I promised you yesterday, my boy, that you should go to your mother in Arendal. I daresay she is wanting to see you."

"If mother is not ill I had rather stay here with you, father, until you go in to see her yourself. She has Henrik with her."

"You would?" said his father, in a rather toneless voice, and looking at him as if some new idea had been suggested to him by the boy's reply.

"But I wish you to go, Gjert," he said then, suddenly, in a changed tone, that admitted of no further question. "Mother took no things with her. You must take her Sunday gown, and what else you know she will want, in with you in the trunk there. It may be a long while before--before aunt is well," he said, and left the house.

While Gjert packed up the things, his father went down to the strand and got the row-boat ready himself for him.